this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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The reason this is done is because you can see everything your browser is doing, but you can't see everything an application is doing without disassembling it.
I want very much to go back to websites. Apps are stupid.
the reason is children. for some reason the most recent generation of kids requires apps instead of sites. god forbid they have to remember an address.
just look at the fuckload of people who cant use lemmy without an 'app'
this is one of my peeeves
My high school computer teacher once ranted about this to us. He said the younger students are lacking the basic concepts of computer stuff. They are spoiled too much to not even know what a file browser is.
That's the parents fault too for not teaching the kids.
Eeh, I see it as a gray area. Majority of millenials, myself included, grew up learning about novel technologies as they developed. We learned how to use desktop computers and browse the internet during a 'golden age' of innovation. They became part of our everyday lives and are second nature to us. The next generations don't fully have that experience but are expected to natively know their way around a computer since they're so ubiquitous in our lives. In reality, they know how to use smart phones and chromebooks but aren't getting the experience of working on a real desktop computer.
Regarding teaching kids the basics, I'd put it on the schools, not the parents. Do schools still have computer labs? That'd be where proper computer skills should be taught. If parents can help at home that's great, but I don't think it should be expected that every kid is going to have a real computer at home to learn on (versus phones, tablets, chromebooks, etc).
He's the computer teacher. Maybe he should teach them about computers
He did teach them. He was just comparing different generations of students.
One of the reasons I like apps for Lemmy is for notifications.
Coincidentally, one of the reasons companies like apps is for notifications.
Your mobile browser supports notifications per site like an app. It even supports custom icons per site when the notification pops up.
You don't even know if the telemetry leaving your phone to the app server is using TLS encryption, you just let them hail-mary football-throw send it.
I don't understand why we insist on bending over and freely giving away our data to fucking apps.
Some people are extremely averse to the discomfort of the slightest speedbump in their computer/phone usage and are more than willing to give their "worthless" data in return.
One benefit an app for something like Lemmy offers is significantly better customization.
thats a copout for the site sucking. lemmy looks like someone forgot the css. one of the reasons i chose mbin, its not fugly and very user-configurable.
no app required
one of the reasons i picked dbzer0 is that the layout just looks Better (ie doesnt look like someone forgot the css) :]
I mean, I think part of it is because they grew up interacting with apps because parents were, mostly rightly, restricting their children from use of the greater unrestricted web. Every modern parent I know had children who knew which apps on mommy or daddy's phone they were allowed to touch - their games or youtube kids or whatever. These apps provided easy safeguards for parents to rein in their child's internet experience. Even if these methods weren't perfect in their attempt (Elsagate and all that), this was still good practice for allowing your child access to modernity in the times you couldn't fully devote your time to overseeing their activity with relative confidence they were probably not watching wildly inappropriate content.
In a perfect world parents and educators would also be devoting time to teaching their child to navigate the internet and allowing them monitored (with physical eyeballs, not tracking) online browsing time, but I don't think we can rightly fault the kids for not having received that. Rather than grumbling about the situation, I think we'd be better served accepting it for what it is and instead approaching the topic from a stance of: how do we teach them better behavior and help them unlearn these bad habits?
edit: typo
You don;t need to put "edit: typo" in your comment. /lh
I'm aware, but I do it to ensure readers that the content of my message hasn't changed in the time since the edit, I'm just cleaning up the syntax. It's a matter of attempting to provide a consistent face.
If it’s a service I use regularly on my phone like Lemmy then an app usually does provide a better experience. The UI is usually better optimised and they tend to load faster. However if I’m only using it once, or if I’ve just visited your site then stop trying to get me to use the fucking app! That goes for Reddit as well, I have the app installed but if I’m just trying to view a post because I googled something I don’t want to be forced into the app
Yeah, but there are companies like McDonald's who killed online ordering on the website to force you to their app. I will not reward that behavior. I don't want any company's app on my phone that does nothing a website couldn't. I just went to a show with some shitty Ticketmaster competitor that required you to have their app to access your tickets (AXS I believe ) Great, you made a competitor to Ticketmaster that's even worse than Ticketmaster. Shit's ridiculous.
im with ya!
we spent the better part of 2 decades building dynamic viewport websites specifically for mobiles devices to use the same website as desktops only for them to force everyone into a fucking app
I think ticketing is one actual good use-case for apps because there's opportunity to provide features the browser doesn't, for example offline ticket access for when you're going to a remote festival and 100k people on the same cell tower bogs down internet speeds, or a QR code page optimized for scanning -- I think that speeds up the process for everyone involved. Same for flight or train tickets. Could you download the ticket or a screenshot yourself? Sure, but as we're discussing, computer literacy (and forethought) is on the decline.
it's called a PDF. also openable in your browser.
I used this on amtrak just last week, and there was, in fact, a QR code on the PDF of my ticket. the only reason I had to slow down was because I had my screen's brightness turned all the way down, and the scanner couldn't read it; a problem I also would have had if I'd been using the app.
I agree with you, but just will also point out that apps can force your screen brightness up when you click on the ticket/scannable QR etc. I have seen grocery store apps do this when you click the 'my card' section. This is a good use case imo.
amtraks app does not do that. im not sure my (phone's) browser, being a phone app, can't.
a lot of the features they MIGHT be able to use better they are actively stripping out. lyft, for example, no longer sends notifications except by sms unless you let them hijack your OS to show you ads. there really is non good excuse to choose the app for any commercial thing.
which isn;t to say i don't have any other apps on my phone. encrypted messengers, an instrument tuner, orbot. just no silicon valley style corporate apps or 'this could just be a website' apps. except amtrak, to try it, because i trusted it a little more. apps are still abusive shit.
Great suggestion for an alternative, but as stated that requires some forethought and extra steps like downloading the PDF and keeping it somewhere retrievable whereas purchasing through the app can automatically do that and make it very easy to find. I think some might enjoy that convenience, and I think that's a good example of apps having value over a browser experience.
i download the PDF when I buy my ticket. it's literally one click extra. in fact, I download it when I OPEN the PDF when I buy my ticket-if I'm not using an amnesiac browser, it's literally the same amount of taps as the app to just leave that window open.
that's not actually true-I have used the app, and its MORE steps, using amtrak as a specific example, literally this month.
I'm happy that you've been able to have a positive experience forgoing using apps in some specific instances, but again as stated my point is more generally that sometimes apps can have functionality that provides more convenience than a browser and we don't seem to be furthering that topic with this tangent. Have a good one 👋
okay but when? when does an app provide function a browser couldn't, for commercial silicon valley type 'apps'?
I mean, even the things they used to do that I'm not 100% sure a website could are being stripped out-lyft for example no longer sends notifications except by sms, unless you opt into advertising.
I'm not a child. But I already have an entire OS running on my phone. Why would I run a browser on top (with all of its UI clutter) so I can use an app.
If I'm going to use an app often, for more than a couple minutes each time, I'm gonna use an app. If I'm just visiting a site for the first time, or I'm just going to stay there a couple seconds (search engines), I'm using the web browser.
Browsers are for browsing the web. Apps (run by the OS, not by a web browser) are for doing things.
hahahahhahhaahahha
im deep in the corporate, non-app web-based environment. this comment is so out of touch. i get that its your POV, but its not even close to the broader reality that most apps are just packaged websites and that browsers are nearly fully virtual machines and incredibly capable.
again, the apps exist generally because they want to capture more data than the browser allows (they are exploiting you). theres very little functionality that cant be run in the browser directly.
That sounds like a shit app. I just don't use those. And if I have to use them, it's rarely enough that they fall into browser's scope.
A large quantity of apps are thinly disguised browsers "stuck" on a specific web page and with extra tracking and data collecting capability. I'd wager all shopping apps are this.
They just haven't seen the light yet - I feel like most people from every generation are app'd up.
fair
I prefer using Lemmy with an app because apps are better designed for my screen than an website. It's kind of rare finding an website that looks good on portrait.
right, the lemmy website is garbage. many others are not. i have zero issue using mbin, accessing lemmy content without an app on my mobile device in portrait.
no app needed, but its because mbin is designed as modern sites should be. dynamically scaled to the requested interface.
again, if your website isnt absolute garbage no app is required.
no they're brilliant, for exactly the reason you said.
I would also like to go back to websites, which are much less evil.